


Deals and Debts

by ThePlotNinja



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blackmail, Disability, Everything subject to change, Give it a go!, Hufflepuff, Pre-Potter Hogwarts, Slurs, Slytherin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePlotNinja/pseuds/ThePlotNinja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tora is from a long line of Purebloods, and as such it's no surprise when she is accepted into Hogwarts. Her twin Emily, on the other hand, seems to have every adult against her. Tora fights for her sister's rights, and is willing to give up her own happiness for her; but in a place ravaged not long ago by the War of the Dark Lord, she begins to feel the threat lingering, not over her sister, but her. Blackmail and badness ensue. Happy ending? We'll have to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deals and Debts

Tora was seven when the first signs of her magical abilities appeared.  
Emily had stormed off in the middle of their game of “Mermaids and Grindylows”; she had wanted to pretend to have one as a pet, so of course Tora had refused. Everyone knew that Grindylows were awful creatures, slimy and gross and probably really, really evil. Emily had stormed off, but Tora didn’t bother following after her twin. She’d be back, once she saw sense, and besides, there were “potions” to be made, and those super-magical, rare, ultra-powerful cherry-blossom flowers weren’t going to crush themselves.  
Tora was so absorbed in her potion-making game that she barely noticed when something nudged at her back. ‘You’ve come back, then?’ she asked the second time she felt the bump, and turned around.  
A shaggy black carpet with eyes stood there, sniffing at her clothing.  
‘Ahh!’ she yelled, scrambling away and running in the general direction of the house; but this seemed to signal a chasing game to the dog, and he bounded after her, making sharp turns and herding her around the huge yard, in the opposite direction of the back door. In glances backwards, she could see only black blurs of speed, teeth and what she would later remember as glowing red eyes.  
‘Get away! MUUUUM!’ she shrieked, reaching the fenced limits of their property and trying to clamber up the sky-reaching old oak; but the lower branches had been sawn off long ago, and so instead she pressed her back up against the tree, protecting her face from the dog’s overexcited licking with her hands, and wished that the dog couldn’t reach her anymore.  
In her anxious sobbing, it took her a minute or two to realise that the assault had stopped, and she could hear the dog’s whining somewhere distant. She cracked open her eyes.  
She was off the ground.  
The oak had grown an extra six metres, incorporating her into its bark so she now sat inside the tree, arms, legs and face dangling out helplessly; she was at the same height as the window of her parents’ empty second-story bedroom. She shifted her head as much as she could in her wooden cocoon; it seemed the poor dog had also been caught in the sudden growth spurt, both his front and hind legs held tight three metres below her. She couldn’t see all of him, but she heard little yelps, and in her periphery when she looked straight ahead she could see the manically-waving tail.  
‘Umm... Mum?’ she tried again. ‘Dad? MUM!!! EMILY!!!’  
No one came.

She sat there until dusk, the autumn leaves of the branch above her occasionally brushing against her knees as they fell. 

At dinnertime, her mother finally came out to call her. She opened her mouth to yell, then, suddenly catching sight of her daughter dressed in tree and the neighbour’s dog caught by its legs, instead emitted a quiet ‘... Oh. Goodness.’  
Tora waved one of her semi-captive arms jerkily. ‘Hi, Mum. Is dinner ready? I’m starving.’

Tora’s dad was so thrilled at hearing his daughter had performed her first magic, that he had already called most of his friends to join them that night for celebrations before his wife gently reminded him that they should probably figure out how to get the girl down from the tree first. And the dog, too.

Balloons and streamers and cake and presents, it was everything a Magic Emergence Party could be. There were other kids running around the place, the adults were sipping on strangely coloured drinks that made them act just a bit silly, and the house was buzzing with music. Tora grinned thanks to her cousin as she pulled a toy sprite from its packaging, watching its little plastic wings build up the momentum to shoot up to the roof, do a lap of the room then return to flap around her head like an oversized bee. Emily would love this.  
Speaking of Emily...  
She peered around the bustling room. With all the large adult figures around, she could barely see across the room. ‘Sabina,’ she called to one of the smaller girls passing by, ‘have you seen Emily lately?’  
‘Don’t think so.’ The little dark-haired girl frowned as she thought. ‘No, don’t think I’ve seen her at all.’  
‘Thanks anyway,’ Tora muttered, but something had already caught Sabina’s attention and she was dashing off after her brothers. Tora pushed her way through the jungle of people to the hallway, then scaled the stairs. ‘Milly?’ she called, pushing open the bathroom door.  
‘Hey!’ a voice shouted indignantly, and she slammed the door shut again, covering her eyes against the image of Nicholas, her teenaged cousin-once-removed, sitting on the toilet.  
‘Sorry!’ she shouted to him, cheeks turning red, and she hurried further along, reaching her and Emily’s shared room. ‘Milly?’  
The room’s lights were turned off, and peering around the darkness Tora couldn’t see anything; however, just as she was about to discount the room as empty, she heard a little sob come from the wardrobe.  
Without turning the light on, and leaving the door only a little ajar to let in just a small shard of light stretching across the teal carpet, Tora moved through the room. She stumbled a little when her foot found some plastic doll figurines they hadn’t put away, but using her outstretched hands to gauge furniture placement she made it to the wardrobe without tripping. ‘Milly, I know you’re in there.’  
‘Go ‘way.’  
Tora paused, the handle halfway opened under her fingers. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked hesitantly.  
‘Go ‘way!’ her twin’s small voice repeated, more steadily and angrily this time.  
Hurt, Tora let go of the handle and turned to leave.  
‘Wait.’  
Before Tora knew what had happened, the door had creaked open slightly and a hand had darted out, clenching around her wrist and yanking her into the closet too. It was a tight fit, but soon the two girls were huddled together beneath various dresses, jackets and robes, the door closed behind them. Emily had brought a glow-in-the-dark ball into the room with her, now glowing only dimly but still enough to make out some details. ‘You’ve been crying,’ Tora noted. Emily snuggled into her shoulder, wiping her eyes on Tora’s dress’s puffed sleeve. ‘Are you scared of all the people downstairs?’  
‘Too loud,’ Emily agreed. ‘I don’t want there to be parties.’  
‘They’ll be gone soon,’ Tora said, wondering if it would be true. Their parents, fairly social by nature, often hosted parties past midnight and deep into the hours of the morning, and since it was only 10pm, Tora had no idea when it would end. Maybe it would be shorter because it was for her? She wasn’t sure, though.  
They sat in silence for another minute before Emily asked, ‘You can do magic now?’  
‘That’s what Mum and Dad say. Not right now, though. But when I’m 11 and go to school.’  
‘Oh. But not now?’  
‘No.’  
‘Oh.’  
She thought for a little while. ‘Can I do magic?’  
Tora considered this carefully. ‘Probably,’ she ventured. ‘I mean, Mum and Dad are both magic, and if I’m magic, and you’re my twin, you must be magic too. Maybe.’ She swivelled to look at Emily, only the slope of her nose and a gleam of her pupils highlighted by the faded green light. ‘Have you done anything magic before?’ she asked curiously, in case Emily just hadn’t mentioned it; but the girl shook her head. ‘Well, it’ll probably be the same as me,’ Tora reassured her. ‘You’ll get scared by something and have do magic accidentally, and then we can go to Hogwarts together.’  
‘No party. I don’t want a party.’  
‘Alright,’ Tora agreed, giggling. ‘No party.’

They spent the next week trying to scare Emily enough to make her do magic, until, when she burst into tears after Tora jumped out from behind some bushes, their mother banned the new game. ‘That’s just not how it works,’ she said, shaking her head; Tora didn’t understand the sad look on her face when she said it, but figured she probably just meant it could take a while before Emily’s magic showed up.

Emily's first magic couldn't have been more different.


End file.
